I do, seriously, love Twitter.
One of the things I love about it is the ability to monitor the conversation about my company, and respond quickly when someone has a problem. Okay, not MY company, because frankly, nobody on Twitter is talking about us. But my industry, yes. There is a LOT of complaining going on about mortgage people, companies, brokers, all of that.
I didn’t really have any idea. Most of the time when people come to me they’re not complaining. Afraid, yes. Worried that things are bad and not going to get better. But they don’t come into my office and say “you never explain anything, your service sucks, and the entire mortgage process makes me feel faintly nauseous.”
This is, however, how they feel. And I didn’t know it.
I had a short back-and-forth with @mototom (Tom Parker), in which he said, in part, “Same old — daily auto-dialer calls with pre-recorded voicemail messages. Crap follow-up once you’re working with them.” And this was worse: “But it may be impossible to humanize it. No matter what, doesn’t it still come down to numbers plugged into a machine?”
Oh. My.
Now I admit in this space all the time that I am not perfect. I am far from as disciplined as I would like to be, and that lack of discipline shows up most often in communication, where I don’t do as well as I should at keeping my clients apprised of what is going on. But I hope – I pray – that my clients don’t feel that they’re not human to us.
I guess I had better ask.
No, Tom, you are not a couple numbers plugged into a machine. You should not be treated that way. You should never feel that way at all, ever, at any point in the process. That you do feel that way is a terrible indictment of mortgage brokers and loan officers, and on behalf of the entire industry, let me offer you a sincere apology, and my personal commitment to do things better in the future.
So that even if we never work together, your willingness to speak out will have helped someone.
Tags: service, Twitter, utah broker, utah mortgage, utah mortgage rates
Posted on Tuesday, 12th May 2009 by chrisjones
Posted in Blog & News | Comments (2)
May 13th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Chris, your post is a good start — now you just have to come up with the “how.”
I should probably clarify the “numbers plugged into a machine” comment, since 140 characters didn’t quite convey my meaning. It wasn’t that we may not be human to the broker (although it often seems that way) or that the consumer *is* a bunch of numbers; instead, I was referring to how the ultimate lending decision is made.
How much influence does the mortgage broker relationship or the knowledge you get about a customer really have on the decision to approve and fund a mortgage? No matter how much time you invest in understanding my scenario, isn’t the decision going to be based on statistics entered into a lending system?
If that’s the case, there’s a limit to how much you can humanize that structure. You can improve the process, but beyond a certain point there will be a sharp decline in the value we get out of having a good relationship where you really understand my financial background.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:59 am
Very helpful information to assist me in getting a good rate! We all need that nowadays! Thanks!